Grid Inspired Artwork
By: Dering Bowers
The 8th graders in Mrs. Burns' art class have recently finished their latest project. Inspired after great abstract and minimalist artists like Piet Mondrian, who was known for his many grid-like paintings such as "Composition With Red Yellow and Blue," our class created pieces with a similar grid pattern. Rather than using paint like Mondrian, we used colored pencils, sharpie, or regular pencil. The pieces we created have a main focal point on top of the grid, with zentangle in the boxes behind it. We started out by selecting the subject matter we wanted the piece to focus on. Some chose foods, some chose animals, and some chose popular logos. The next step was to sketch it out on the grid paper. This part took the longest, because we also had to come up with many zentangle designs to fill the blank space with too. Some students chose designs that matched their subject matter, so if someone chose their subject matter to be a dog, they could draw pawprints in one of the spaces. Next came the fun part, coloring. Students could use just colored pencils, just sharpie, just regular pencils, or a combination of sharpie and colored pencils. This part also took quite a long time. We colored in the main subject matter, and the zentangle behind it. Once that was done, then came adding the finishing touches, such as outlining the border, or blending the colored pencils more. Overall, I thought it was a very fun project, and I liked that we could chose what our artwork focused on. You can see a selection of these pieces hanging up in the main hallway in Mrs. Burns' Gallery.
